Well another weekend has come and gone far too quickly but never the less a good weekend.

I wanted to up the miles on the bike and get some hillier routes in as well.   So I had a mostly good 54.5 miles on the bike on Saturday – the furthest I’ve cycled this year – mostly good apart from the hills which I need to seriously work on!

The hilly section all happens in the first 10 miles – nothing particularly long or high but all wee bastards – I knew this in advance – I chose the route to see how I would fair – I’ve done them all many times before and knew that they would be hard work but perfectly doable with some practice – practice I need – I huffed and I puffed and didn’t have any energy to blow anyone’s house down far less get to the top of some of the hills – I had to get off the bike 3 times and push it!!   But there is an advantage to going up hill at snails pace pushing a bike – I was able to stop and watch the curlews and lapwings (peewit’s), spotted a hare and also watched either some Clydesdale or Shire horses playing in a field – I’m not very up on my horses but they were big and had very shaggy hairy feet – they were also having lots of fun running round their field.   I also saw lambs,  lots of daffodils,  some siskins and lots of gold finches.   There is also the reward of the downhill section as well – what goes up must come down and once I’d got past the very rutted and potholed section I had a nice long sweeping downhill section.

Sunday saw me on a mission – to do battle with the hills – just 16.5 miles but starting with the same route and hills as yesterday – there will be a few more battles over the coming weeks before I conquer these few hills without having to push the bike up the steeper bits.

Sunday also saw me stitching and patching up my panniers – they are about 12 years old now – I bought them for my very first cycle tour.   The left one is in pretty good nick – it doesn’t get used nearly as much as the right one – the only stitching it needed is where mice chewed a wee hole in it some years ago.   The right one is much more worn and needed some quite extensive stitching on 2 of the seams – I think I’ve made a pretty good job and they should last a good few years yet – other half says I should buy some new ones but I like the ones I’ve got and they have come on all my bike tours so far – maybe they are my lucky panniers??